In recent years, fiber-reinforced molded products have been proposed as members requiring high stiffness, such as a housing of laptop computers. As the fiber-reinforced molded products, for example, carbon-fiber-reinforced articles obtained by laminating carbon fiber prepregs and then reacting and curing the laminated carbon fiber prepregs are known. Such fiber-reinforced molded products using carbon-fibers are, for example, known as the following.
Patent Document 1 discloses a fiber reinforced product in which a plurality of fiber reinforcement layers obtained by arranging continuous carbon fibers in a sheet shape in one direction are laminated on top of another in specific arranging directions.
Patent Document 2 discloses a sandwich structure including a core material having pores, and a fiber reinforcing material disposed on both surfaces of the core material and constituted of continuous carbon fibers and a matrix resin.
Patent Document 3 discloses a composite molded article in which continuous fiber reinforcement fabric including at least carbon fibers are disposed on both surface of a soft member layer to produce a sheet, the resulted sheet is set in an injection mold, and then resin parts are injection-molded on a side of the sheet.
Also, Patent Document 4 discloses a method for manufacturing a sandwich type composite material having elasticity, in which fabric sheets formed of glass fibers impregnated with an epoxy resin are arranged on top of another in a mold, and then an urethane resin foam is foamed between the fabric sheets (see Example 1 of Patent Document 4).
However, in fiber-reinforced molded products having fiber fabrics, such as a carbon fiber fabric or a glass fiber fabric, on a surface thereof, stepped portions are created between portions 215, in which fibers are superimposed, and texture gaps 216 on the surface of the molded article, as shown in FIG. 8. As a result, a surface roughness of the surface is increased due to an influence of the stepped portions, and the influences of the stepped portions cannot be reduced even if exterior coating is performed. Thus, it is difficult to obtain a smooth surface. A reference numeral 221 designates transverse fibers and a reference numeral 222 designates longitudinal fibers.
Also, when exterior coating has been performed, air bubbles are remained in the stepped portions, so that pinholes can be created on the surface of the coating film. In particular, an appearance state after exterior coating is important for a use in which exterior coating is usually performed from the viewpoint of improving aesthetic appearance and the like. In general, inorganic materials, such as carbon fibers, do not have a good compatibility (adhesion) with urethane coatings or UV coatings, and thus there is also a possibility that coating film may be peeled off.